I said in a recent post that I was speechless but I am not when it came to the speech made by Dr Katherine Rake the new Head of the Government funded (ie - by you and me) Family and Parenting Institute. After all, she was previously Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, an organisation that not indulges in male bashing but also ignores the mainstream concerns of normal women, instead concentrating on bashing their husbands, sons, brothers and fathers and politicising debates about gender. The Fawcett Society does not speak for normal women.
The commentary in the Daily Telegraph shows the difference between the defeatism of those on the left and the recognition of those mainstream people who want to reverse the decline in the nuclear family.
Context is important because of what it says about the role of fathers in the lives of their children.
By accepting that the two-parent family is dead, is as David Willetts the Conservative Shadow in this area, ignores the aspirations of normal people and of course as Iain Duncan Smith would I am sure conclude, exacerbates the problems some children face being separated from their father/male role model (or mother in some cases).
But it is the wider issue as well as to accept that the two parent family is dead means it makes it easier to continue the trend of father bashing, commentators saying fathers are not important and therefore why is it a problem if they cannot get access to their children or what happens to men. Katherine Rake is trying to set the terms of the debate not just on families but also on the role of fatherhood and men. A debate she has to lose.
Her record at the Fawcett Society would suggest fathers, like men, are not important.
Interesting to see what happens to her if the Conservatives win in 2010?
Editors Note
Excellent response from Jill Kirby at the Centre of Policy Studies
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